Is Divestment Dead?

As Presbyterians take up issue next month, Methodists’ rejection likely to loom large.

Rev. Kenneth Chalker: Cites Jewish outreach as key to divestment vote.

by James D. Besser
Washington Correspondent

Proponents of divestment face mounting obstacles as they go into the next round of battles over the controversial proposals to punish Israel with economic sanctions, thanks to last week’s action by the General Conference of the United Methodist Church (UMC) rejecting several divestment proposals.

“We’re seeing that while serious differences over Israel and the Middle East remain, there is a growing feeling that the one-sided narrative that holds Israel exclusively responsible is not getting traction in churches that are seeking a way forward,” said Ethan Felson, associate director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) and a key organizer in Jewish anti-divestment efforts.

The factors that led to the Methodist rejection of divestment at the quadrennial meetings, Felson said, could change the tenor of

the debate when the Presbyterian Church (USA) — the denomination that started the divestment movement — meets in San Jose, Calif. in late June.

At that meeting delegates will consider new proposals calling for divestment from several American companies that proponents say profit from Israel’s occupation of the West Bank — but also a resolution stating that the church should not identify solely with one side in the Middle East conflict. If passed, that would represent a clear slap in the face to pro-divestment forces.

At last week’s UMC meetings, Jewish activists and church officials alike say there was a sharp shift away from divestment in a denomination beset by internal conflicts over homosexuality and the growing influence of Third World affiliates, as well as external pressure from an evangelical movement that continues its rapid growth — often at the expense of the “mainline” denominations — and which is making theological inroads within the traditional Protestant churches, as well.

The divestment issue, church insiders say, has become entangled in a multi-front battle between theological liberals and conservatives; a key strategy of Jewish groups has been to separate the issues and try to get church leaders to focus on Mideast issues, including divestment, separately.

When that happens, Jewish activists say, divestment resolutions falter.

“When churches start to think through these divestment resolutions, they are deciding this is not what they want to do,” said Mark Pelavin, director of the Reform movement’s Commission on Interreligious Affairs. “Hopefully we’ll see that same dynamic continue when the Presbyterians meet.”

According to UMC officials and Jewish leaders, a key factor in derailing divestment involved extensive contacts between local Jewish groups and their Methodist counterparts. Jewish community councils, local affiliates of groups like the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League and congregational rabbis were all part of the political full court press, with coordination from JCPA.

“The local relationships that exist and that were developed is what turned this around,” said Felson, who attended the entire ten day conference in Fort Worth, Texas.

The Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, working with JCPA, mobilized rabbis around the country, said Reform leader Mark Pelavin.

“It’s all about relationships,” he said. “The fact that rabbis were able to reach out in their own communities was critical; it was outreach based on relationships they had cultivated over a long period of time.”

Methodist activists said that close-to-home connection paid off.

“As a delegate, I received mounds of information on many different subjects,” said the Rev. Ken Carter, pastor of the Providence United Methodist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. “That really doesn’t have an impact. But when churches have connections with neighboring Jewish congregations, what develops are personal relationships.”

Those relationships at the grassroots level — some cultivated by Jewish groups in response to the ongoing divestment wars, some based on longstanding community relations projects — changed the perspective of many delegates, he said.

“Here in Cleveland, my friends in the Jewish community, my rabbi friends and others, were very aggressive in talking to me about this issue and the impact it is having on them and on their communities,” said the Rev. Dr. Kenneth Chalker, senior pastor of the First United Methodist Church in Cleveland and a clergy delegate at the conference. That kind of interaction convinced many delegates that “it’s better to be at the table talking than out in the hallway screaming.”

Chalker said he is “considered on the left side of many social issues the church faces today,” and that he opposes church conservatives who reject divestment because it conflicts with a hawkishly pro-Israel theology.

“I have been very outspoken in opposing ...those who say, let’s support Israel because the quicker Jesus comes back the better,” he said. “That’s a point of view I hate, it’s a misinterpretation of the Gospel.”

But like liberal Jewish groups such as JCPA, he was willing to work with the conservatives to beat back divestment.

“It’s important to have allies where you find them,” he said.

The local dialogues and aggressive campaigns by national Jewish organizations such as the ADL also helped expose the radicalism of a pro-divestment movement that claimed to want a just peace in the Middle East but which in fact used arguments denying Israel’s legitimacy.

“We expressed our distress – that would be too weak a word, actually – at the material that contained writing that was not only anti-Israel but anti-Semitic in nature,” said Sister Ruth Lautt, O.P., national director of Christians for Fair Witness on the Middle East, an anti-divestment group.

Growing exposure of that kind of extremism “shocked a lot of United Methodists into realizing their Church’s engagement on the issue may have become problematic, and that it’s time to draw back a little and take a more Christian approach,” said Lautt, a Catholic. “And that’s exactly what happened.”

The same factors may be at work in other Protestant denominations, she said.

Another factor undercutting pro-divestment forces involved the desire of church leaders to avoid a distracting and divisive battle at a time when it is fighting for its survival in the face of the growing challenge from conservative evangelical churches and deepening theological conflict between liberals and conservatives inside the church.

“They are deeply concerned about their own internal issues,” said Rabbi Joshua Martin Siegel, who may have the most distinctive job title of any Jewish cleric in the country: rabbinic adviser to the Baltimore-Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church.

“They don’t want to get involved in a controversial issue that will sap their vigor for the kind of revival needed by a church that has been in decline.”

Slapping sanctions on Israel — or wasting countless hours arguing about it — would do little to stop the loss of members to evangelical churches or heal deepening internal rifts, he said — “a perspective that began to have an impact on the national church.”

Complicating the debate was the fact that many of those pushing for divestment were also advocating more liberal positions on issues such as the role of gays in the church — positions that church conservatives and some UMC leaders felt were accelerating its decline.

To a degree, “divestment was a proxy for other conversations going on in the church,” said a Jewish official who has been involved in the anti-divestment effort. “The gay rights groups within the church were not necessarily pro-divestment, but they were clearly anti-Evangelical.”

To many liberal church activists, the evangelicals have come to symbolize a hardline position on Israel they despise, as well as theological conservatism on issues like the role of gays in the church. So the divestment question became entangled in other divisive church issues.

But Jewish activists were able to separate out the Mideast issue, this activist said. And when considered on its own, “punishing Israel no longer seemed like a good idea for the church.”

Westchester Jewish Conference

Westchester’s Jewish Community Relations Organization